Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) will launch in November the Enable Makeathon, a programme aimed at developing affordable solutions for persons with disabilities in rural areas.
A private sector panel at the World Intellectual Property Organization this week explored the collaborative relationships that develop between screenwriters, producers, and directors around the world as they bring a project from an initial idea to a finished film. The panel also looked at the role of copyright law in the various stages of this film-making process.
In a new report, the United Nations Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights examines the implications of patent policy for the right to science and culture. She gives a number of recommendations calling for countries to refrain from granting stringent patent protection, and respect their human right obligations.
The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership should expressly include an international treaty on cultural diversity, public broadcasters and a coalition have said.
The World Intellectual Property Organization governing body started examining the work of its committees yesterday, with the hope of solving some issues that those committees were unable to solve during the year. This included the work programmes of the committees on copyright and on trademarks and geographical indications.
Access to medicines and innovations was the subject of a panel organised at the World Trade Organization Public Forum last week. After 20 years of the WTO intellectual property agreement, panellists looked at the impact of the agreement on access to medicines, and in particular the use of its flexibilities. In addition, a delegate of India detailed the legal-political aspects of an upcoming WTO decision on disputes for harmful actions that do not technically violate any WTO rules.
World Intellectual Property Organization members called for swift adoption of new treaties at the outset of the organisation's annual General Assemblies this week.
Reactions to yesterday's announcement that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is in the books quickly turned to “what's next?” with European Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem sending congratulations and expressing expectations that “with TPP done, we will be able to approach our TTIP negotiations with an even greater focus from both sides.” But considerable work remains for TPP to come into effect.
The fate of the World Intellectual Property Organization committee dedicated to finding solutions to protect traditional knowledge, generic resources, and folklore is being actively discussed informally at the organisation's general assembly.
Free trade agreements should include incentives for generic and biosimilar medicines, speakers said at a panel during the World Trade Organization Public Forum last week.
On 29 September, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted a resolution on how to safeguard the public interest against the interests of the pharmaceutical industry.
As government negotiators dig into perhaps the final round of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade negotiations this week in Atlanta, they may take comfort in knowing that nothing they are doing has to be shared with the public they represent until years after it is over. That's because a federal district court in Manhattan decided this week, in a closely watched Freedom of Information Act case brought by Intellectual Property Watch, that draft texts of the trade deal can be kept secret. The court did, however, cast doubt on the government's reasons for also keeping its communications with industry lobbyists from the public eye.